New Delhi: Ten India-based foreign correspondents have resigned from the Foreign Correspondents Club of South Asia after the association’s president visited Myanmar last week at the invitation of a state-run newspaper and had meetings with senior ministers in the military junta.When contacted by The Wire, the FCC-South Asia president S. Venkat Narayan noted that he didn’t want to comment on the matter beyond the statement that he had circulated to the club members on Saturday. Meanwhile, an emergency meeting of the club’s board has been convened for June 13 to discuss the issue.The letter signed by ten current members including the bureau chiefs of the Economist, Washington Post, Agence France Presse, Financial Times, Radio France International and ARD was sent to the FCC on Sunday evening. It was also ‘supported’ by 22 other former FCC members, who are currently based in India as foreign correspondents.It said that the signatories were “shocked and embarrassed to learn that the club’s president, Venkat Narayan, visited Myanmar last week, consulted for an organisation that disseminates the views of the country’s military junta, and participated in meetings with junta representatives that enabled his visit to be portrayed in a manner that brings the name of the FCC into disrepute”.One of the signatories who didn’t want to be named separately told The Wire that they learnt about the visit only when it was reported in the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper. The Myanmar state-run daily had carried at least four news reports on Narayan’s meetings with four ministers in Nay Pyi Taw.In his circulated statement dated June 10, Narayan said that an attempt was being made “to create the false impression that I led a media-delegation to Myanmar to meet the military junta”.Stating that it was not accurate, Narayan told FCC members that he travelled “as a guest of a Myanmarese newspaper and was invited as a journalist to share my perspectives on its editorial content etc”.However, the joint letter pointed out that the state Myanmarese media had reported on Narayan’s official meetings with ministers “by name as the representative of the club in numerous reports, and used his association with the FCC for propaganda purposes”.“We deplore the notion that the president of a group that is meant to represent journalists and stand up for media freedom would consult for and accept remuneration in kind from a propaganda organ of a regime that has jailed 70 journalists and is ranked 173 out of 180 countries in the latest press freedom index compiled by Reporters Without Borders,” it noted.The letter also alleged that the latest episode was only part of a broader trend of ethical concerns besieging the club. “This episode, which continues a pattern of activities that betrays the club’s role in protecting and facilitating independent journalism, has irrevocably destroyed our faith in the FCC as an organisation that can successfully represent our interests. We resign our membership with immediate effect,” it said.There have been rising vocal concerns about the difficulties faced by foreign correspondents in doing their jobs, especially due to uncertainties in the timely renewal of their visa status as well other coercive methods. The pressures faced by the foreign correspondents had been documented in internal surveys conducted by the FCC over the last three years.Narayan, who is the India correspondent for Sri Lanka’s The Island newspaper, claimed that the reporting done by the state media was “not in my discretion”. “Let me again emphasise that my meetings there with some ministers had nothing to do with FCC,” he said.The FCC president also claimed that “recent past Presidents have accepted invitations, represented FCC at conferences like for instance in London and did not inform the MC ever about it!”However, a former board member said that the London trip was recorded in the minutes of the meeting of the board in October 2022. Then FCC President Munish Gupta had travelled to the annual meeting of the International Association of Press Clubs in London at his own expense, he added. The IAPC had also agreed to hold the next meeting in New Delhi in 2024.Narayan also asserted that he was a professional journalist for over 50 years, travelled to 68 countries on work and interviewed scores of foreign dignitaries.“My visit to Myanmar last week was one such, and I met many diplomats, journalists and ministers in Myanmar to understand what is going on there, when they plan to hold elections, etc., as any journalist would,” he said.He also argued that no member of the board, whether travelling to Srinagar or Kabul, is bound to inform the managing committee, if they have gone on a private capacity. “And, being a member of the MC in no way restricts any of us from seeking stories, travel for exclusives and meeting all types of people.”